My response to panel on Religious and Mystical Experience at SBL

I participated in a panel jointly sponsored by the Religious Experience and Esotericism and Mysticism sections of the SBL, giving a response to three papers - by Frances Flannery, Istvan Czachesz, and Jim Davila.

If you would like to read my paper, it's after the jump.



I would like to begin by offering my thanks to all three authors for their thought-provoking articles. My discussion will consider each paper in turn, while also making comments drawing the papers together. I am starting with Jim’s paper, “Ritual Praxis in Ancient Jewish and Christian Mysticism.”

Jim’s paper is a lucid discussion of the issues involved in discovering the relationships between ancient instructions for ritual practice and mystical experiences. His survey of the sources for these rituals surveys texts that provide explicit directions, first-hand accounts of mystical experiences, fictional accounts, and architecture and artifacts. His discussion of how to glean rituals from first-hand or fictional accounts is very useful. I would emphasize that the Hekhalot literature, as discussed later in the paper, also contains many ritual instructions intended to bring angels down from heaven (for example, the Sar ha-Panim or Prince of the divine Countenance) and instructions for travel to the heavenly throne room. The instructions for invoking angels, in particular, include many details of ritual practice that are similar to some of those in Sefer ha-Razim. As for the Babylonian incantation bowls, I question whether in most cases we can regard the rituals accompanying their use as mystical in nature. As Jim points out, most of them are protective and exorcistic, intended to protect those named on them from demonic attacks. It is also difficult to discern exactly what rituals would have accompanied the use of these bowls, because we do not possess any kind of accompanying ritual handbook which explains how they were used once they were written. In terms of methodology, Jim’s work and the work of others has demonstrated amply how useful cross-cultural comparisons are, either within the closer culture area of Greco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern societies or farther afield, for example his own comparison with the Hekhalot rituals and shamanistic traditions from Siberia, North and South America, and Japan. Jim’s most intriguing suggestion for comparison is his last, with modern ceremonial magic. I think this suggestion is well worth following up, and there are anthropologists who have already written ethnographies of a number of groups using the various techniques of ceremonial magic, whether or not derived from the Golden Dawn – for example T. M. Luhrmann’s study, Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England, and Felicitas Goodman’s Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences. Other comparative possibilities also suggest themselves – to the meditative and ritual techniques of medieval and early modern Jewish mystics, among them Abraham Abulafia and Isaac Luria (via Luria’s disciple, Hayyim Vital). J. H. Chajes’ study Between Worlds is a useful entry into the world of Safedian Kabbalah, where these techniques were developed and elaborated. The proposals that Jim makes in his paper have the potential to be very useful in helping us to understand the experiences of ancient Jewish and Christian mystics.

I now turn to Istvan’s and Frances’ papers. My expertise is in the study of mysticism in late antiquity, not in cognitive neuroscience. My comments here will center what I think is useful in Istvan’s and Frances’ papers for the study of mysticism, and on questions I have about whether, and how, the insights of neuroscience can be applied to the study of mysticism in late antiquity.

Let us begin first with basic definitional questions raised by both Istvan’s and Frances’ papers – how can we define both religion and mysticism? Is mystical experience necessarily religious? Frances’ definition assumes this, when she says that mysticism is a “sub-category of religious experiences that entails experiences rooted in personal bodily expressions of an epistemological revelation.” Questions of definition have bedeviled the study of religion for many decades, and there is no unified definition that all or even most scholars would agree upon. The same is true for the study of mysticism, perhaps even more acutely. Earlier definitions of mysticism saw mystical experience as “union with the divine,” but this definition excludes religious communities whose practitioners deny the possibility of such unions, non-theistic religions, nature mysticism, mystical experiences by people who do not belong to a particular religious community, and probably others that I am not thinking of. One of the great virtues of William James’ discussion of mysticism in his Varieties of Religious Experience is that he attempted to collect a very wide range of testimonies of mystical experience and then present them on a spectrum of experiences. He does come up with a well-known synthetic definition but does not deny the mystical aspects of experiences that do not fit the full definition. Istvan’s paper would appear to agree with this approach (when it says that “mystical experience should include sensations of being near to superhuman, absolute, ultimately significant, hidden, or overwhelming things and beings,” p. 3) but to take it back when it says “Mystics maintain elaborated philosophical and exegetical traditions and emphasize the importance of a sustained, long-term engagement with them” (p. 11). This is certainly not true of all mystics. I think that there needs to be much more careful attention paid to exactly what mystical experiences are being studied through neurological testing, in order to end up with results that will be meaningful for understanding mystical experiences. And if we want the results to be relevant to mysticism in late antiquity, following a definition such as that offered by April DeConick in Paradise Now would be helpful, as Frances says. DeConick’s definition “identifies a tradition within early Judaism and Christianity centered on the belief that a person directly, immediately, and before death can experience the divine, either as a rapture experience or as one solicited by a particular praxis.”

Istvan’s paper surveys a range of neurological studies that attempt to determine the parts of the brain activated by a variety of activities that the researchers consider religious or potentially religious – meditation by Tibetan Buddhists or Franciscan nuns, glossolalia, Bible reading, and rhythmic dance and music engaged in by Pentecostal Christians. He says, however, that “It is important to note that simply observing that a certain brain area plays some role in a certain kind of experience is not yet a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon,” because “one has to keep in mind that any real-life cognitive and behavioral phenomena depends on the cooperation of a network of brain areas.” Therefore discovering what part of the brain is active when a certain activity is done is an interesting fact, but does not necessarily explain the phenomenon. One question I would have about these findings is whether they tell us anything about how the practitioners themselves would explain their own experiences? One advantage that researchers of contemporary religious activity have over studies of ancient religion is that they can observe and even take part in religious performances, as well as ask people directly what their experiences are. Has this been done? I think it would be interesting to see if the neurological findings align with the practitioners’ reports of their own experiences.

Finally, I would like to ask how these studies of contemporary practitioners of various religions can apply to the study of ancient religious texts? As Jim has pointed out, the way we learn about ancient mystical experiences is by interpreting texts that may be first-person accounts, or fictional accounts, or ones that correlate certain ritual activities with experiences such as visionary dreams – but we cannot ask ancient people what their experiences were. Nor do we know how close the written accounts are to what people actually experienced. It is much easier for us to figure out what ritual activities people engaged in. Perhaps by making a catalog of ritual activities that the ancient texts refer to, and then testing people today who engage in those ritual activities, we might be able to learn something about the areas of the brain that would have been activated in ancient people who did those same rituals. Frances’ paper, it seems to me, is making the first steps towards trying to do something like this in her examination of the Testament of Abraham.

Istvan’s discussion, however, leaves out a crucial element in the study of experience, whether ancient or contemporary, whether religious, mystical, or another kind of experience – the role of culture and language in determining experience – both the experience itself and how it is later interpreted. Steven Katz has famously stated that, “There are no pure experiences … it is not just a question of studying the reports of the mystic after the experiential event but of acknowledging that the experience itself as well as the form in which it is reported is shaped by concepts which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience.” The virtue of Katz’s position is that it strives to deal with the differences in mystical experiences across cultures and religions, rather than eliding them. Frances modifies Katz somewhat, saying that “the brain simultaneously processes religious or mystical experience as stimuli of various neurological regions of the brain along with cultural matrices of interpretation, and that these are inseparable even on a neurological level of processing.” Frances’ account of mystical experience is sensitive to the particular cultural matrix of a particular account of mystical experience, even if she would not go as far as Katz does.

Despite my hesitation to identify all mystical experiences as religious, there are several aspects of Frances’ definition of mystical experience in antiquity that I think are quite interesting and useful, especially her insistence on paying attention to the body. Ancient accounts of mystical experience do often include bodily descriptions – for example, a passage in the Hekhalot literature refers to the experience of standing in limitless space with one’s feet cut off [need to find exact reference]; in the Apocalypse of Abraham, Abraham finds himself prostrate, clutching at the rolling floor of heaven; and Paul is taken up to the third heaven “whether in the body or out of the body.” And various ritual practices involving the body are often a requirement to achieve specific mystical experiences – for example, again in the Hekhalot literature, in order to encounter an angel and speak with him, the practitioner typically has to fast for a certain number of days, eating only bread he has baked and water he has drawn, isolating himself from all other people in a room, and reciting prayers and adjurations – all physical, bodily activities.
The question I asked earlier – about how the neurological studies can be useful for the study of mystical experience in antiquity – is answered in an interesting way by Frances, when she says that “when we marginalize the body in our discussions of mysticism in antiquity, we miss the one sure bridge we have to antiquity…. it is our embodiment that is the one sure window into those persons who composed, heard, and/or circulated the mystical texts.” She then focuses on details that Jim also addresses in his paper from the point of view of ritual studies – the bodily expressions in mystical texts. The texts describe body postures, the senses, affective changes in the body, etc. These insights are easy to apply to Frances’ discussion of the Testament of Abraham, which includes many physical actions that correlate with affective experiences – for example, when Abraham washes the stranger’s feet, his “heart was moved and he wept over the stranger.” Her discussion of the Testament of Abraham also accords well with the cross-cultural approach that she and Jim both advocate, when she compares the activities in the Testament with those typically engaged in by someone who engaged in dream incubation at a temple of Asclepius. It will be interesting to see Frances’ full exploration of the Testament of Abraham in the light of cross-cultural studies of mystical experience and ritual and the findings of cognitive neuroscience.

More on the Gospel of Judas and astrology

I just read through my notes on Grant Adamson's presentation on "The Gospel of Judas as Horoscope" (which will be published soon in Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 71). Here are the important points I took away from the presentation:

• the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy was the ancient source for prognostic astrology, which among other things involved calculating the length of life, which was determined by the stars at birth
• the stars are the cause of events
• in Gospel of Judas – the souls of the holy generation will not be subject to the stars (only their bodies)
• they are only ruled by fate when it comes to their deaths
• astral determinism – all is in the power of fate (according to Firmicus Maternas, another astrologer)
• Judas (therefore) cannot join the holy generation
• according to others (e.g., magicians), one’s fate could be changed
• in the Eighth Book of Moses (PGM 13) – the deity would descend and tell the horoscope to the practitioner, who can then get his fate changed if he behaved correctly and had correct knowledge
• Judas is incompetent, unlike the astrologers in PGM 13, and can’t get his fate changed
• in Sethian Gnosticism – mockery of Plato’s Timaeus and its Demiurge, as much as of the God of Genesis
• Ehrman, Pagels, and King have misunderstood this and ignored the astrological context
• the Savior acts as an astrologer in this text
• Judas asks for his fate to be changed, but the Savior refuses - hence, he doesn't join the holy generation which is saved from astral determinism

More great SBL sessions on mysticism

I've really been enjoying the SBL this year. Yesterday and today the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism section had excellent sessions with lots of lively discussion. Yesterday, at the Second-Century Christian Mysticism and Gnosticism session, April DeConick spoke on "Star Gates and Heavenly Places: What Were the Gnostics Doing?" She discussed a Gnostic group called the Paratics (whom I had never heard of), who were mentioned by Hippolytus. (See this selection from G.R.S. Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, for his discussion of Hippolytus' account of the Paratics). Her discussion focused on the very complex picture of reality formulated by the Paratics and their beliefs about how the Gnostics will be saved upon death by traveling through the regions under the Moon, then into a region where they will encounter the hostile archons, and how they finally will be saved by traveling through the constellation Draco into the upper realm of the heavenly Father. Much of their worldview is based on ancient astrology.

The next paper was by Grant Adamson - "Fate Indelible: The Gospel of Judas as Horoscope." His abstract captures the important points of his paper:

By observing and calculating the position of the stars, ancient astrologers concerned themselves not only with predicting but also explaining ex post facto the time and manner of a native's death. Cases of violent death were of particular interest. Those astrologers who were more magically inclined sought to cheat death by calling down a god to cast their horoscope for them and erase their foul fate. Writing in the second century CE, the author of the Gospel of Judas drew on these traditions and practices in order to explain the fate of the already infamous betrayer who had facilitated the crucifixion and died violently himself. Jesus speaks as an astrologer in the Gospel of Judas, using technical astrological terms, and his predictions for Judas are grim. Judas asks Jesus for salvation, but the god explains that his fate is indelible.

Grant's paper confirmed the observations of April in her book on the Gospel of Judas (The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says), namely that the book does not depict the victory of Judas over his fate, but rather his condemnation by the Savior to be the thirteenth daimon.

This is an interpretation opposed by Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, and Karen King in their books on the Gospel of Judas. For an example of this line of interpretation, see Bart Ehrman in The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot (p. 98):

Judas, even more than Jesus, is the hero of this acount. To be sure, Jesus is the divine revealer who alone knows the mysterious truths that can lead to salvation. But the Gospel is about Judas: how he received these revelations; his superiority to all the other disciples, who continued to worship the false god(s) who created this material world; and how he would ultimately transcend this world, as at the end of his life he would enter into that 'luminous cloud,' in which dwells the ultimate and true God himself."

In the second edition of the National Geographic publication of the Gospel of Judas, see pages 18-22 for a survey of the conflicting opinions.

The third paper in the session was "The Tower as Divine Body: Visions and Theurgy in the Shepherd of Hermas," presented by Franklin Trammell. The abstract of his paper reads:

Behind some of the visions and teachings in the Shepherd of Hermas lies the notion of a direct correspondence between the heart of the righteous and the androgynous divine body. This body is presented by Hermas as a sevenfold Tower that is in the process of being (re)built by (re)incorporating the feminine Ecclesia. Members of the Ecclesia, who are pure of heart, are clothed with twelve virgins and receive the seal of the Son of God, representing the female and male aspects of the body. They then affect the reintegration of this female aspect, being built into the eschatological Tower as a part of her. Hermas’ law of purity therefore plays an incredibly important theurgic role. In identifying the Tower with the Ecclesia, itself implicitly assimilated in the text to Sophia, the author portrays those who do not sin after baptism as participating in the (re)unification of pre-existent Wisdom. It is this process along with elements related to it that shares affinities with later Jewish mystical sources.

I found this talk fascinating, especially since I've never read the Shepherd of Hermas. I found particularly interesting the possible connections to Sefer ha-Bahir that he mentioned.

The last talk, by Jonathan Knight, was on the Ascension of Isaiah.

"The use of Jewish and other Mystical Traditions in the Ascension of Isaiah." The Ascension of Isaiah is an important text because it is our earliest non-canonical Christian apocalypse. I date in the decade 110-120 CE, so that its author potentially knows earlier Christian literature, although he continues to rely on the oral tradition that surfaces also in Matthew's Gospel. The text sheds light on the development of early Christian mysticism in the period roughly between the last of the New Testament documents and the rise of the Gnostic literature.

I'm fading at the moment, so I'll have to leave today's panel for now, and hope to get back to it tomorrow or the next day.

Mysticism at the SBL

I'm attending the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Annual Meeting right now, which is being held in New Orleans.

I arrived in New Orleans very late Thursday night (my plane from Newark was delayed because of all the air traffic and weather problems) and then got up bright and early on Friday morning to go to the New Testament Mysticism Project session. This is the first time I've managed to get to one of these sessions, and it was really worthwhile. The presenters spoke mostly on the Gospel of John, giving very detailed exegeses of short passages. I found it very interesting and thought-provoking.

Last night an independent supporter of biblical studies who lives in Jerusalem, Jay Pomrenze, organized a delicious Shabbat dinner for any of the wandering Jews at the conference. He is a most generous soul and the atmosphere was very heimish. I think a majority of the celebrants were from Israel (mostly from Bar Ilan University). There was apparently a nice davening, which I missed because I had to take a nap before Shabbat.

Today I got up late and then went to the book display - finding several (expensive) books touching on early Jewish mysticism - Peter Schäfer's new book on the origins of early Jewish mysticism, a new synoptic edition of Sefer ha-Razim, and Christopher Rowland's and Christopher Morray-Jones' new volume, the Mystery of God, which is on early Jewish mysticism and the New Testament.

This afternoon I attended the first meeting of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism section, which included a review of the Mystery of God, done by three scholars - Charles Gieschen, Jim Davila, and Alan Segal. Alan couldn't make the meeting, so I read his contribution. After the three reviews, Chris Rowland's response was read by another participant, and Chris Morray-Jones replied in person. Overall, it was a very interesting discussing and I look forward to reading the book when it arrives.

I'm heading off right now for the annual dinner with the other members of the Early Jewish and Mysticism section, and anticipate a delicious dinner and fascinating discussion.